The evolution of Pakistani society: family, work, education (پہلا موضوع)

Section A gives you an unseen Urdu passage drawn from any one sub-theme and asks for an English translation, marked by a points-based scheme in which one mark is given for each correct individual section of language. Translate the three sentences below and account for every decision. پاکستان میں خاندان کی ساخت گزشتہ نصف صدی کے دوران خاموشی سے بدلی ہے۔ شہروں میں نوجوان جوڑے اب اکثر والدین سے الگ گھر بساتے ہیں، حالانکہ دیہات میں مشترکہ خاندانی نظام اب بھی عام ہے۔ ماہرینِ عمرانیات کا کہنا ہے کہ اس تبدیلی کی بڑی وجہ روزگار ہے، نہ کہ رویوں کی تبدیلی۔

1. 01Sentence one: find the verb and let agreement tell you the subject

   پاکستان میں خاندان کی ساخت گزشتہ نصف صدی کے دوران خاموشی سے بدلی ہے۔ Urdu is verb-final, so read to the end first: بدلی ہے is a present perfect, and it is feminine singular. That agreement is your evidence — the subject must be ساخت, structure, which is feminine, and not خاندان, which is masculine. خاندان کی ساخت is a possessive phrase with کی agreeing with ساخت. گزشتہ نصف صدی کے دوران is a time adverbial: دوران governs کے, and نصف صدی is half a century. خاموشی سے is an adverb formed with سے from the noun خاموشی. English: In Pakistan the structure of the family has changed quietly over the past half-century.

2. 02Sentence two: the concessive is the mark, not the vocabulary

   شہروں میں نوجوان جوڑے اب اکثر والدین سے الگ گھر بساتے ہیں، حالانکہ دیہات میں مشترکہ خاندانی نظام اب بھی عام ہے۔ بساتے ہیں is a habitual present, masculine plural, agreeing with جوڑے, couples. والدین سے الگ is separate from the parents — الگ takes سے, and a translation that writes separate to the parents throws away a mark. حالانکہ is the concessive conjunction although, and the examiner is looking for it to be rendered as a concession and not as a second main clause. اب بھی is still. English: In the cities young couples now often set up a home separate from their parents, although in the villages the joint family system is still common.

3. 03Sentence three: the attribution formula, which you will meet again and again

   ماہرینِ عمرانیات کا کہنا ہے کہ اس تبدیلی کی بڑی وجہ روزگار ہے، نہ کہ رویوں کی تبدیلی۔ ماہرینِ عمرانیات is an izafat construction: ماہرین, the plural of ماہر, bound by the Persian enclitic izafat to عمرانیات, sociology — hence sociologists. X کا کہنا ہے کہ is the standard Urdu frame for X says that, and it is the single most useful attribution formula on this specification: learn it now and use it in every essay. نہ کہ is and not, marking a contrast between two nominals. English: Sociologists say that the main reason for this change is employment, not a change in attitudes.

4. 04Check the whole against the marking model before you move on

   The scheme awards one mark per correct individual section of language, so the marks sit on the joints of the sentence: the perfect tense, quietly, over the past half-century, separate from, although, still, sociologists say, and not. A version that reads smoothly but flattens حالانکہ into and, or turns کا کہنا ہے کہ into it is said, has lost specific marks even though nothing in it is untrue. Translate the joints first, then read your English aloud in your head and repair the rhythm without loosening any joint.

Result: In Pakistan the structure of the family has changed quietly over the past half-century. In the cities young couples now often set up a home separate from their parents, although in the villages the joint family system is still common. Sociologists say that the main reason for this change is employment, not a change in attitudes.

Section A of Paper 2 gives you an unseen English passage on any one sub-theme and asks for an Urdu translation, 20 marks in a recommended 30 minutes. Translate this, and justify each decision as you go. 'Over the past thirty years many households in the large cities have become smaller. Sociologists argue that the main cause is the price of housing rather than a rejection of tradition. Nevertheless, elderly parents are still usually looked after at home.'

1. 01Sentence one: build the time phrase, then the subject, then the verb

   Urdu word order is subject, then adverbials of time, place and manner, then object, then verb — so the English sequence has to be rebuilt, not tracked. گزشتہ تیس برسوں میں بڑے شہروں کے بہت سے گھرانے چھوٹے ہو گئے ہیں۔ برسوں is the oblique plural of برس required before میں. گھرانے is the masculine plural of گھرانہ, so the adjective is چھوٹے, not چھوٹا. ہو گئے ہیں is an intensive compound — the vector جانا adds completion to ہونا — in the present perfect, which is what have become asks for. Writing simply چھوٹے ہیں would say are small, losing the change.

2. 02Sentence two: attribute, then contrast two nominals

   ماہرینِ عمرانیات کا استدلال ہے کہ اس کی بڑی وجہ مکان کی قیمت ہے، نہ کہ روایت سے انکار۔ کا استدلال ہے کہ is argue that, one register above کا کہنا ہے کہ and worth having as a variant, because AO3 explicitly rewards saying things in different ways. وجہ is feminine, so بڑی وجہ. The contrast rather than is نہ کہ, which joins two noun phrases; a beginner writes a second clause with لیکن and loses the parallelism. روایت سے انکار, refusal of tradition, uses انکار with سے, a collocation Appendix 2 names under verbs preceded by a preposition.

3. 03Sentence three: reach for the passive, because the grid asks for it

   اس کے باوجود بزرگ والدین کی دیکھ بھال عموماً گھر ہی میں کی جاتی ہے۔ اس کے باوجود is nevertheless. دیکھ بھال, care, is feminine, so the passive verb is کی جاتی ہے — the habitual passive built from the perfective participle plus جانا. The English are looked after has no named agent, and Urdu handles that with exactly this construction rather than with a limp active. ہی is the emphatic particle attaching to گھر: at home and nowhere else. The AO3 additional guidance names the passive voice as complex language; one deliberate, correct passive in a translation is a mark you can plan for.

4. 04Proofread for the four errors that cost most

   Read your Urdu back hunting only for these: gender agreement between every noun and its adjective and verb; oblique plurals before postpositions (برسوں میں, شہروں کے, not برس میں, شہر کے); the ergative نے, which must be absent here because no verb in this passage is a transitive perfective; and the postposition each verb actually governs (انکار سے, نہ کہ انکار کا). Those four account for most of the marks lost in this task by candidates who understood the English perfectly.

Result: گزشتہ تیس برسوں میں بڑے شہروں کے بہت سے گھرانے چھوٹے ہو گئے ہیں۔ ماہرینِ عمرانیات کا استدلال ہے کہ اس کی بڑی وجہ مکان کی قیمت ہے، نہ کہ روایت سے انکار۔ اس کے باوجود بزرگ والدین کی دیکھ بھال عموماً گھر ہی میں کی جاتی ہے۔

Section B gives you four questions, some multiple-choice and some open-response, on authentic or adapted texts, all set in Urdu and answered in Urdu. Take this short passage and answer the two questions after it. Passage: نکاح نامے میں شرائط درج کرنے کا حق ہمیشہ موجود رہا ہے، لیکن بہت سے خاندان اسے استعمال نہیں کرتے۔ وکلا کے مطابق اس کی وجہ لاعلمی ہے، رواج نہیں۔ حالیہ برسوں میں کچھ تنظیموں نے نوجوانوں کو یہ فارم پڑھنا سکھایا ہے، اور اُن کا دعویٰ ہے کہ اس سے تنازعات کم ہوئے ہیں۔ Question (a): متن کے مطابق بہت سے خاندان نکاح نامے کی شرائط کیوں استعمال نہیں کرتے؟ Question (b): آخری جملے میں لفظ ’دعویٰ‘ کے استعمال سے مصنف کے رویّے کے بارے میں کیا ظاہر ہوتا ہے؟

1. 01Read the question stem for its verb before you read the text again

   Question (a) says متن کے مطابق, according to the text: that phrase is an instruction to retrieve, not to think. Question (b) says کیا ظاہر ہوتا ہے, what is revealed: that is an inference question about the writer's stance. Sorting the four questions into retrieval and inference in the first minute tells you where the reading time has to go, and it stops you writing an opinion where a fact was wanted.

2. 02For the retrieval question, locate the causal marker

   The passage supplies its own cause: وکلا کے مطابق اس کی وجہ لاعلمی ہے، رواج نہیں۔ The answer is therefore lack of awareness, not custom — and the marker کے مطابق tells you the text is attributing that explanation to lawyers rather than asserting it. A good answer carries the attribution over: وکلا کے مطابق اس کی وجہ لاعلمی ہے، نہ کہ رواج۔ Roughly fifteen words, complete, and it does not lift a whole sentence.

3. 03For the inference question, name the word's effect, not its dictionary meaning

   دعویٰ means claim, and the point of the question is that the author chose it instead of a factive verb. The answer must say what that choice does: مصنف نے ’کہا‘ یا ’ثابت کیا‘ کے بجائے ’دعویٰ‘ لکھا ہے، جس سے ظاہر ہوتا ہے کہ وہ تنظیموں کے بیان کو نقل کر رہا ہے، اُس کی تصدیق نہیں کر رہا۔ That is the whole inference: the writer is reporting rather than endorsing. Note the construction نقل کر رہا ہے … تصدیق نہیں کر رہا, a present continuous set against its own negation, which is a clean way to draw a contrast.

4. 04Answer in Urdu, in your own words, at the length the marks justify

   Everything in Section B is set in Urdu and must be answered in Urdu. Two traps follow. The first is lifting: copying a whole clause from the text shows nothing about your understanding and can score nothing on an inference question. The second is overwriting: an open-response question in a twenty-mark section over forty-five minutes does not want a paragraph. Answer the question asked, in a sentence or two, in accurate Urdu, and move on — the reading section's time is better spent on the harder inference items than on polishing a retrieval you already have.

Result: (a) وکلا کے مطابق اس کی وجہ لاعلمی ہے، نہ کہ رواج۔ (b) مصنف نے ’دعویٰ‘ کا لفظ استعمال کیا ہے، جس سے ظاہر ہوتا ہے کہ وہ تنظیموں کے بیان کو نقل کر رہا ہے اور اُس کی تصدیق سے گریز کر رہا ہے۔

Section B of Paper 3 gives you one listening source and one written text drawn from the same sub-theme; 5(a) and 5(b) ask you to summarise the different points of view in each, and they are marked by a points-based scheme. Work the pair below. Heard source, a radio interview with a factory owner: he says the province's wage order raised his costs, that he keeps his registered workforce small and takes on seasonal labour, and that inspection visits are frequent but brief. Read source, an opinion column: the writer argues that the seasonal workforce is the point, that the minimum wage cannot reach workers who are not on the register, and that inspection measures the wrong thing.

1. 01Take notes in two columns, in Urdu, before the second replay

   You have individual control of the recording and may stop, revisit and replay as you wish — so the first pass is for the shape and the second for the detail, not the other way round. Head one column سنی ہوئی رائے and the other پڑھی ہوئی رائے. Under each, write claims, not topics: مالک کا کہنا ہے کہ اجرت کے حکم نامے سے لاگت بڑھی is a claim; اجرت is a topic and is worthless later.

2. 025(a): summarise the heard source's viewpoint, not its content

   The question asks for the different points of view, so the summary is of a position. فیکٹری مالک کا مؤقف یہ ہے کہ صوبائی حکم نامے نے لاگت بڑھا دی ہے، اسی لیے وہ مستقل عملہ محدود رکھتا ہے اور موسمی مزدور رکھتا ہے؛ اُس کے نزدیک معائنہ باقاعدہ ہوتا ہے مگر سرسری۔ Two sentences, every one of them a position and not a fact about the world. بڑھا دی ہے is an intensive compound with دینا; اُس کے نزدیک is a compact way of saying in his view, and it saves you a whole clause.

3. 035(b): summarise the read source so that the contrast is visible

   کالم نگار کا مؤقف اِس کے برعکس ہے: اُن کے مطابق موسمی عملہ رکھنا ہی اصل مسئلہ ہے، کیونکہ کم از کم اجرت اُن کارکنوں تک نہیں پہنچ سکتی جو رجسٹر پر ہی نہیں؛ اور معائنہ اُس چیز کو ناپتا ہے جو اہم نہیں۔ اِس کے برعکس, on the contrary, does structural work: it tells the examiner you have understood that these are two positions on one question. جو رجسٹر پر ہی نہیں is a relative clause with the emphatic ہی, and نہیں پہنچ سکتی is a negated potential compound with سکنا — both on the Appendix 2 list.

4. 04Check that your two summaries could be told apart with the labels removed

   The commonest failure in 5(a) and 5(b) is two paragraphs that both say wages are difficult. Before you move to 5(c), read your two summaries and ask whether a reader who could not see which was which would know that these people disagree, and about what exactly. Here the disagreement has a precise object: whether the register is a side effect of cost or the mechanism of avoidance. Naming that object is what makes the evaluation in 5(c) possible.

Result: 5(a) فیکٹری مالک کا مؤقف یہ ہے کہ صوبائی اجرت کے حکم نامے نے لاگت بڑھا دی ہے، اسی لیے وہ مستقل عملہ محدود رکھتا ہے اور موسمی مزدور رکھتا ہے؛ اُس کے نزدیک معائنہ باقاعدہ تو ہوتا ہے مگر سرسری۔ 5(b) کالم نگار کا مؤقف اِس کے برعکس ہے: اُن کے مطابق موسمی عملہ رکھنا ہی اصل مسئلہ ہے، کیونکہ کم از کم اجرت اُن کارکنوں تک نہیں پہنچ سکتی جو رجسٹر پر ہی نہیں، اور معائنہ اُس چیز کو ناپتا ہے جو اصل میں اہم نہیں۔

Section C gives you one unseen Urdu text on your research subject and a statement to respond to, 40 marks in a recommended 85 minutes, 320 to 370 words, no dictionary and no notes in the room. Suppose the statement is: ’سرکاری اسکولوں کی کمزوری ہی کم فیس والے نجی اسکولوں کے پھیلاؤ کی اصل وجہ ہے‘ — the weakness of government schools is the real reason for the spread of low-fee private schools — and the unseen text is an article in which a headteacher describes parents moving their children to a nearby private school. Plan and open the answer.

1. 01Decide what the statement actually claims, and what would count against it

   The statement makes a causal claim with the word ہی doing the work: not a reason but the reason. Your response therefore does not need to deny that government schools have problems; it needs to test whether that is the whole cause. Two rival mechanisms are available from research: parents may be buying English-medium instruction and the examination route that goes with it, which is a positive choice rather than a flight; and low-fee private schools may be spreading fastest where there is no accessible government school at all, which is a supply story rather than a quality story. Plan the answer around three moves — concede, complicate, conclude.

2. 02Mine the unseen text for what only it can give you

   The unseen text is written to be readable by anyone taking that research subject, so it will not contain your country detail — that is your job. What it does contain is a voice and a situation you can quote and argue with. Take from it one specific: the headteacher's account of why parents left. Then attach your research to it. متن میں ہیڈ ماسٹر کا کہنا ہے کہ والدین انگریزی ذریعۂ تعلیم کی وجہ سے بچوں کو منتقل کرتے ہیں؛ میری تحقیق سے یہ بات اِس لیے اہم معلوم ہوتی ہے کہ … The AO2 grid is out of 10 and rewards exactly this: using the text, not summarising it.

3. 03Write an opening that states a position and names the framework

   یہ بیان جزوی طور پر درست ہے، مگر اِس میں ایک وجہ کو واحد وجہ بنا دیا گیا ہے۔ پاکستان میں تعلیم ایک نظام نہیں بلکہ متوازی نظاموں کا مجموعہ ہے، اور کم فیس والے نجی اسکولوں کا پھیلاؤ اسی ساخت کا حصہ ہے۔ Two sentences: an evaluative position and the framework it will be argued inside. Note بنا دیا گیا ہے — a passive of an intensive compound, precisely the complex language AO3 names — and note that the position is neither agreement nor refusal, which is what a levels-based grid rewards over a flat yes.

4. 04Distribute the three aspects across the body and attribute as you go

   Paragraph two takes parallel systems and the supply question; paragraph three takes opportunities for the poor, where fees, distance and quality meet; paragraph four takes equal opportunity for girls and boys, where distance to school and the availability of female teachers are the standard explanations offered and are weighted differently by different researchers. Every interpretive claim opens with a frame: ماہرینِ تعلیم کے مطابق, کچھ محققین کا کہنا ہے کہ, حکومتی دستاویزات میں یہ مؤقف اختیار کیا گیا ہے کہ. Three attributed positions across three paragraphs is enough to lift the AO4 mark, and it costs about twenty words.

5. 05Close on a conclusion that is marked as yours and follows from the body

   میری رائے میں سرکاری اسکولوں کی کمزوری ایک اہم وجہ ضرور ہے، لیکن اسے واحد وجہ کہنا اِس لیے درست نہیں کہ اِس سے وہ والدین نظر سے اوجھل ہو جاتے ہیں جو کسی متبادل کے نہ ہونے کی وجہ سے نجی اسکول کا رخ کرتے ہیں۔ The conclusion answers the statement's own word ہی, it rests on a mechanism the body established, and it is explicitly labelled as an opinion. Then count: 320 to 370 words is roughly four solid paragraphs, and in the exam you should know what that looks like in your own handwriting before you sit down.

Result: Opening: یہ بیان جزوی طور پر درست ہے، مگر اِس میں ایک وجہ کو واحد وجہ بنا دیا گیا ہے۔ پاکستان میں تعلیم ایک نظام نہیں بلکہ متوازی نظاموں کا مجموعہ ہے، اور کم فیس والے نجی اسکولوں کا پھیلاؤ اسی ساخت کا حصہ ہے۔ Closing: میری رائے میں سرکاری اسکولوں کی کمزوری ایک اہم وجہ ضرور ہے، لیکن اسے واحد وجہ کہنا اِس لیے درست نہیں کہ اِس سے وہ والدین نظر سے اوجھل ہو جاتے ہیں جو کسی متبادل کے نہ ہونے کی وجہ سے نجی اسکول کا رخ کرتے ہیں۔